Belonging to the Body of Christ

By Sr. Ann MacDonald, C.S.J.
September/October 2009

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The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) is a significant feast for the Catholic population of Mzuzu Diocese. It is celebrated communally with members of the small Christian communities, nurturing the people’s souls in the unfolding journey of their daily lives.

Preparations began on Saturday with some members of each Christian community gathering at St. Peter’s Cathedral at a designated time to decorate for the next day’s event. Since the theme is centred on the Eucharist, each faith community builds a house of welcome for Jesus to visit on the feast day. Each house would uniquely represent the creativity of the designers and carry the theme, “We are the Body of Christ.”

Scarboro missioner Sr. Ann MacDonald, and John and Trinitas, together with other members of the St. Maria Goretti faith community in Mzuzu, Malawi, use a paste to create circular symbolic houses and a path around the cathedral grounds. The bishop walked the path during the Feast of Corpus Christi in a symbolic gesture of carrying the Blessed Sacrament from house to house.

On my way home from an errand, I met the members of St. Maria Goretti community who were beginning the work of designing their house. They asked if I wanted to assist them. I accepted their invitation thinking this might be an opportunity for me to learn more about the feast and its significance to the people. Someone handed me a bucket of sawdust and, pointing, told me to “follow that woman” and do what she was doing.

Her name was Trinitas and she was creating a path that would be walked by the bishop in a symbolic gesture of carrying the Blessed Sacrament from house to house. My job was to help her with the outline of the path and then to follow her markings to create what looked like a sidewalk. The path went all around the cathedral grounds, linking one house with the next.

Once the path was complete, work began on the symbol chosen by the St. Maria Goretti community to represent their house. They chose a dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. A young artist was recruited to draw the dove in the centre of a circle and then the dove was filled in with white lime to make it stand out.

Following the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday, Bishop Zuza carried the Blessed Sacrament from house to house. At each house, an elder of the community knelt to welcome Jesus and to ask for a blessing on behalf of the members of the community. The bishop then responded with a blessing and a prayer of thanksgiving and proceeded to the next house. I was deeply struck by the reverence of the people as the Eucharist was carried through the crowd and their sense of joy, expressed in song and dance, that Jesus was visiting their community.

As I celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 14 this year in my new country, I thought of the words of Henri Nouwen and how fitting they seem to be for me. He writes about the journey of finding God that each of us is invited to take so that we can become bread for others. The words from the Consecration seen to be so appropriate here, “taken, blessed, broken and given.”

Living with and among the people of Malawi this past year has offered me numerous opportunities to share in their stories of blessing and brokenness, of joy and sadness. Coming along the road on Saturday when I did, gave me an opportunity to be with and among the people as they took part in a very common task of preparing their home for a visitor.

The feast of Corpus Christi is a celebration of our loving God who accompanies us and gives us strength as we share His life through the Eucharist. It is this awareness of God’s accompaniment that I am experiencing among the Malawian people knowing that we are all members of the Body of Christ.

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